Everything changes. For Buddhist priest and meditation teacher Lewis Richmond, this fundamental Buddhist tenet is the basis for a new inner road map that emerges in the later years, charting an understanding that can bring new possibilities, fresh beginnings, and a wealth of appreciation and gratitude for the life journey itself.

The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully

The Gift of Years looks at the many dimensions of aging, the purposes and concerns, struggles and surprises, the potential and joys. It deals with the sense of rejection that comes from feeling out of it. It reflects on the temptation to isolate oneself from the changes taking place, and on the need to stay involved. It discusses issues of health and well-being and the need to put one's affairs in order. It describes what happens as old relationships end and shift....

Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong

Lojong is the Tibetan Buddhist practice that involves working with short phrases (called "slogans") as a way of generating bodhichitta, the heart and mind of enlightened compassion. Though the practice is more than a millennium old, it has become popular in the West in only the last 20 years or so - and it has become very popular indeed because it's a practice that one can fit very well into an ordinary life, and because it works.

This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity

In this intimate and funny collection of essays on the sometimes confusing, sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious condition of being a woman over 60, Susan Moon keeps her sense of humor and she keeps her listener fully engaged. Among the pieces she has included here are an essay on the gratitude she feels for her weakening bones; observations on finding herself both an orphan and a matriarch following the death of her mother; musings on her tendency to regret the past.

The Wonder of Aging: A New Approach to Embracing Life After Fifty

The best-selling author of The Wonder of Boys offers a holistic and uplifting look at how to celebrate life after 50. Written with Gurian’s courageously optimistic outlook on life, The Wonder of Aging is a comprehensive and comforting road map of what to expect in the second half of your life - and how to celebrate it. The elder years can be a journey into something richer and deeper, full of hope and meaning rather than a sense of fate, and this audiobook gives you the tools to revel in them to the fullest.

The Art of Aging: A Doctor's Prescription for Well-Being

In his landmark book How We Die, Sherwin B. Nuland profoundly altered our perception of the end of life. Now in The Art of Aging, he steps back to explore the impact of aging on our minds and bodies, strivings and relationships. Melding a scientist's passion for truth with a humanist's understanding of the heart and soul, Nuland has created a wise, frank, and inspiring book about the ultimate stage of life's journey.

Beyond Happiness: The Zen Way to True Contentment

In Beyond Happiness, Bayda draws on Zen teachings to question our conventional notions about what happiness is and where we can find it. Most of us seek happiness in things that are external to us. We imagine that getting more money, a better relationship, or going on a nice vacation will finally make us happy. But Bayda shows us that the deepest and most lasting form of happiness does not rely on external circumstance at all.

The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life's Perfection

Michael A. Singer, author of The Untethered Soul, tells the extraordinary story of what happened when, after a deep spiritual awakening, he decided to let go of his personal preferences and simply let life call the shots. As Singer takes you on this great experiment and journey into life's perfection, the events that transpire will both challenge your deepest assumptions about life and inspire you to look at your own life in a radically different way.

Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being

Though we talk about wanting to age gracefully, the truth is that when it comes to getting older, we’re programmed to dread an inevitable decline: in our health, our looks, our sexual relationships, even the pleasure we take in living life. But as Christiane Northrup, MD, shows us in this profoundly empowering program, we have it in us to make growing older an entirely different experience for both our bodies and our souls.

The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

You have within you an unlimited capacity for extraordinary love, for joy, for communion with life, and for unshakable freedom - and here is how to awaken it. In The Wise Heart, celebrated author and psychologist Jack Kornfield offers an accessible, comprehensive, and illuminating guide to the universal teachings of Buddhist psychology. He shows you how to use powerful Buddhist insights and practices to go beyond the trap of "self-improvement".

Waking Up brings you the insights of 34 of today's leading authors and teachers who have deeply explored the implications of spiritual awakening. Sounds True publisher Tami Simon will speak with the teachers about their personal understandings of awakening - how it happened, what changed (and what didn't), and how their experiences can inspire and inform our own realizations.

Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death

The Buddhist approach to death can be of great benefit to people of all backgrounds - as has been demonstrated time and again in Joan Halifax's decades of work with the dying and their caregivers. Inspired by traditional Buddhist teachings, her work is a source of wisdom for all those who are charged with a dying person's care, facing their own death, or wishing to explore and contemplate the transformative power of the dying process.

The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path

Do you feel at home right now? Or do you sense a hovering anxiety or uncertainty, an underlying unease that makes you feel just a bit uncomfortable, a bit distracted and disconnected from those around you? In The Road Home, Ethan Nichtern, a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, investigates the journey each of us takes to find where we belong.

How to Wake Up: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide to Navigating Joy and Sorrow

Using step by step instructions, the author illustrates how to be fully present in the moment without clinging to joy or resisting sorrow. This opens the door to a kind of wellness that goes beyond circumstances. Actively engaging life as it is in this fashion holds the potential for awakening to a peace and well-being that are not dependent on whether a particular experience is joyful or sorrowful.

Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

Building on the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with God and on the story of her own battle with life-changing disappointment, Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister explores the landscape of suffering and hope. Meant to help listeners cope with their own suffering and disappointment, this book is, in Sister Joan's own words, "an anatomy of struggle and an account of the way hope grows in us, despite our moments of darkness, regardless of our regular bouts of depression.

At the heart of Healthy Aging is Dr. Weil's belief that although aging is an irreversible process, there are myriad things we can do to keep our minds and bodies in good working order through all phases of life. To that end, he draws on the new science of biogerentology (the biology of aging) as well as on the secrets of healthy longevity, diet, activity, and attitude, that he has gathered firsthand from cultures around the world.

The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton: A New Look at the Spiritual Inspiration of His Life, Thought, and Writing

Millions of Christians and non-Christians look to Thomas Merton for spiritual wisdom and guidance, but to whom did Merton look? In The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton, Franciscan friar and author Daniel Horan shows how, both before and after he became a Trappist monk, Merton's life was shaped by his love for St. Francis and for the Franciscan spiritual and intellectual tradition.

Following the Path: The Search for a Life of Passion, Purpose, and Joy

Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister brings to bear the insights of her years of teaching and contemplation to provide us with a way forward as we search for meaning and purpose in our lives. She offers a much-needed message in a crowded modern world that can seem overwhelming and confusing. Through her examination of spiritual calling, gifts, change, and discernment, Sister Joan leads us to the place where - finally - we know we fit; where we are our fullest selves and can be a gift to the world.

If you want to find inner peace and wisdom, you don't need to move to an ashram or monastery. Your life, just as it is, is the perfect place to be. Jack Kornfield, one of America's most respected Buddhist teachers, shares this and other key lessons gleaned from more than 40 years of committed study and practice.

Publisher's Summary

Everything changes. For Buddhist priest and meditation teacher Lewis Richmond, this fundamental Buddhist tenet is the basis for a new inner road map that emerges in the later years, charting an understanding that can bring new possibilities, fresh beginnings, and a wealth of appreciation and gratitude for the life journey itself.

In Aging as a Spiritual Practice, Richmond acknowledges the fear, anger, and sorrow many people experience when they must confront the indignities of their aging bodies and the unknowns associated with mortality. This wise, compassionate book guides listeners through the four key stages of aging - such as "Lightning Strikes" (the moment we wake up to our aging) - as well as the processes of adapting to change, letting go of who we were, embracing who we are, and appreciating our unique life chapters.

Unlike many philosophical works on aging, however, this one incorporates illuminating facts from scientific researchers, doctors, and psychologists, as well as contemplative practices and guided meditations on aging's various challenges and rewards. The tandem of maintaining a healthy body and healthy relationships, infused with an active spiritual life, is explored in rejuvenating detail. Breath by breath, moment by moment, Richmond's teachings inspire limitless opportunities for a joy that transcends age.

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